


young al capone

by sleeplessandcynical



Series: things that lie behind (Suplex City!AU) [2]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: "I came back for you" trope, Childhood Sweethearts, Dean Ambrose (minor appearance-ish), Dean is everyone's BroTP, Dirty Talk, F/F, First Kiss, Gender Identity, Porn with Feelings, Semi-Public Sex, Wrestle AU: Suplex City, casual life of crime, librarian!Chyna, nice uncle!Eddie Guerrero, this is pure self-indulgent trash tbh, threats of fisting, turned into grownup sweethearts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 07:17:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeplessandcynical/pseuds/sleeplessandcynical
Summary: Wee baby Becky Lynch grows up in Suplex City (super mega shoutout to concussed_to_pieces for this) with her parents. Then one day they send her to book club, and she meets a very unusual kid who kiiiinda smells like fire and brimstone all the time.I wrote a big-ass novel that may or may not ever see the light of day (it needs a LOT of work in order to form an actually coherent narrative, and that is… not my strong point as a human being), and this is a slightly adjusted excerpt from that because the more I wrote their relationship the more I fell in love with it. I’ve tried to tweak this so that hopefully it doesn’t require a whole lot of context to understand, but if you want some, it’s in the end notes.soundtrack: Rancid - Rancid (2000) - "Young Al Capone"





	young al capone

There’s not a whole lot left in Suplex City but the library these days. Ain’t been much at all since it burned.  

Rumors. Land being bought up, or at least acquired somehow. Buildings being torn from the guts on out. Money, drugs, blood pouring in, charming shadow figures from the infamous Parts Unknown. Rumors, smoke, rust. And the library.

Becky’s nineteen, damned near twenty, when thinking about the library finally eats her alive. See, six years earlier, there’d been this girl.

Well. Let’s try this again.

Eleven years ago, there was a person. This nobody, this eventual-girl, this shock-ridden, abraided, scarred-up, beat-down critter who slipped quietly into the room with a steel rod in their spine and Rob Halford in their headphones and weird, twisty gossip swirling around where they came from. Somebody said the big guy from the Kliq was their dad. Somebody else said they’d literally been born from a fireball, the one that leveled half of Suplex City and threatened to put the other half out of work. There were whispers that they _were_ the fire; that it crept out of their pores when somebody looked at them the wrong way. It made no logistical sense, but there it still was.

It was all horseshit. They were just a kid; just a scared, lonely kid whose face threatened to come apart from glee when they worked up the nerve to shuffle across the trashed concrete plaza to the low, cracked, dirt-colored building that said _LIBRARY_ across the doors in half-peeled paint and finally, eventually, learned what it was like to have friends. The librarian, who was tall and dark like a forest fairytale, somehow got them all together to talk about books in what would have passed as an after-school program if half of them actually had a school to go to. That kid was eight. Becky was eight. Ironically, they’d introduced themselves to everyone as Seven. Seven Hanh, it said on their library card. They’d gawked, fascinated by her long red braids, rubbing the scruffy half-shaved parts of their own mass of dark hair, the beginnings of a stalk of long limbs and wiry muscle.

They grew up together, right on up despite a similar lack of sunlight and vegetables, winding through the stacks together, arguing about the merits of one author or another together, sharing headphones and secrets together. Becky’s parents both worked long, long, _long_ hours at one of the factories that choked out ash over the skies of the city, and they lived in this rathole on the East Side and took turns sleeping on the floor and threatened to forget each other’s names. When this new kid, whose ribs started to poke through their shirts less and less every week, said they lived in the Underground, everybody wrinkled their eyebrows. It explained the smell, but not a whole hell of a lot else. _People_ came from down there? If any of the kids had parents, they’d been told that way lay monsters, and monsters alone, and people who pried up the right manhole covers or found the right tunnels just plain never showed up anywhere again. Lost, in every conceivable sense of the word. At night, the spaces between the sewer grates glowed a deep red sometimes, and flickered like fire, like the sun on a very bad morning.

Seven never made a peep about where they came from other than the most high-level of basics. Sev didn’t make much of a peep at all, if we’re being honest. They took to some of the other kids more readily, particularly the guys, in a way that the lens of adulthood makes adamantly clear was a matter of comfort; like so many kids before them, they quickly determined the best way of coping with unfamiliar emotions was to pretend they don’t exist. Stick with what you know.

_Don’t let them see you sweat. Don’t let them see you._

Six years ago, Becky realized she couldn’t stand to watch that kid anymore. So she went to Dean. Dean was an orphan, but not one of the lucky ones with the big eyes and the clear skin who got scooped up by some rich family out of a Dickens novel; he was a street kid, a scrapper, banged-up and loud-mouthed and reeking of the things that chased behind him. He and Sev both always had bloody knuckles and circles under their eyes, and it was often the other to blame. It was the weirdest form of affection she’d ever seen. Is that how people _like_ each other? Becky was pretty sure she’d never seen her own parents so much as touch.

“You like _Sev?_ ” he groaned, slamming the back of his fist into the alley wall. A shower of dirt and crumbling concrete rattled across the ground in response.“That ain’t so smart. I can see it but it ain’t so smart. They might even be more fucked-up than I am, bro.” But he said it with a smart-alecky grin and a certain sheen of pride, and added, “You better bring your A-game.”

So then, one day, she just… does it. Seven is walking out of the library, all thirteen and long legs and lost cause, and Becky leaves behind them and _words_ come out of her mouth.

"Hey Sev! Do you wanna walk home with me?” Becky catches up and practically skips, burning off nervous energy. “I got a question for you.”

“I still don’t like _Wuthering Heights,_ Beck, you know that’s not going to change.” Seven’s voice has always been rougher than the rest of them, like they grew up in a house on fire, like they drank something that burned. But this was strangely weightless, teasing even. It makes her stomach twist and it makes her wonder about the mouth on that kid.

“That’s not it, I swear!” Becky realizes her voice is probably too loud for the occasion, and quickly shakes her head. Her braid smacks her in the face, and she pulls it out without thinking, shaking the bright red waves loose to cover her flush. When she speaks again, she pitches her voice low and serious, so serious that the other kid actually stops walking and turns towards her. "Sev, I gotta ask you something."

"You said that already. What's up?" Seven cocks their head, face framed by steam from a hissing pipe. For some reason, the one thing they don’t flinch at is sudden, loud noises from the earth and the metal framework upon it. Some of the other kids still have nightmares about the way the city cracked into pieces a few months before Sev showed up at the book club. “And you missed your turn.”

“Fuck!” Becky spits, and they cut across the side street that leads, eventually, to her parents’ apartment. Then they stop again. Becky shuffles. Sev leans against the building and circles their foot like they’re putting out a cigarette.

Becky stops dead in her tracks, and Seven turns to face her and does the same. There’s a very, very long pause while Becky scuffs her feet some more, tugs on her jacket, and then blurts out, "Can I, ehm. Do you want to kiss me?"

Seven is shocked into silence, which looks an awful lot like their usual parceling-out of words, until they can get the blood back in their face and cough. "You. Wow. You want me to?"

Becky nods firmly. Then the embarrassment becomes palpable, overwhelming, and she retreats a step or two, literally and verbally. “Just once. I just wanna know what it's like."

Seven looks at her for what feels like a very, very long time, and then they take a step forward. Becky doesn’t step back, and the next thing Becky knows, she’s being kissed -- featherlight, careful, jumpy, frozen in time. And that’s it. That’s all there is. Sev raises their hands, slowly, but Becky jumps, already on a hair trigger from a complicated cocktail of adrenaline and confusion.

Out of instinct, they try to kiss Becky again, but the redhead pulls away, and Seven nods. “Once. I get it.” Then, for reasons that will never make sense to either of them no matter how deeply they’re dissected, they just say, “Thanks,” and take off running across the plaza.

 _well the third world working on the factory floor_  
_it's so dark in there you can't see the sun no more_  
_well uh cold and burnt are frostbitten hands_  
_leave you like a flower that's been pulled from the sands_  
_well uh rabid dogs yeah chewing at my feet  
__trying to protect their side of the street, well_  

* * *

 

The universe is full of cruel coincidences, and a few weeks after the kiss, Becky’s parents come home with their heads low and the news that the factory’s been shut down. There’s a lot of crying, and a lot of walls that get punched, and a lot of careful muttering behind barely-closed doors, and in the end, they decide to head for the woods a few hundred miles to the west. There’s still pockets of cousins there; there’s food, and shelter, and at the very least a _different_ norm of abject poverty. It’s more of a chance than they’ve got in this merciless shithole.

She thinks sometimes at night about the creak of metal, the howl of faraway trains, the crunch of scrap and gravel underneath the too-big boots she’d stuffed with newspaper. She thinks about Dean. She thinks about the library. Mostly, she thinks about Seven.

By fourteen, she’s working in a mechanic’s shop, grease streaked through her hair and dirt buried in the gashes on her knuckles. That ain’t bad. That ain’t bad at all. She fiddles, she tinkers, she fucks with, she fixes, she sells. By sixteen, she’s shored up her very own singlewide and shattered some boys to pieces - broken hearts, and auto parts, and everything between.

 _(I could hide for days  
_ _live inside my dreams)_

She’s been scraping at this ancient motorcycle from the junkyard for months, now, and it finally starts up with a throaty, cancerous rattle. She carries a used-to-be-red can of gasoline out from the shop and takes to the road. Almost crashes the damned thing right off the bat. Digs up a helmet for next time. Picks the bugs out of her hair, which just keeps getting longer and longer, a flame licking behind her, and tries again. Burns the shit out of her leg on the muffler, and swaps her cutoffs for real jeans. Her boss can’t stop a wheezing, choking laugh at the sight, and hands her some eye protection, too. It looks ridiculous, but it’s better than gravel in your corneas.

Two days later, she’s blasting down the highway, headed to the closest town. She waits until she sees leather, hears music, and pulls over. When she takes her helmet and goggles off, the men out front all stare, and when she flips them the bird and tells them to pull their heads out their arses, the women smirk. Before she knows it, Becky’s there every weekend, soaking up the new bands. She starts a diary that’s just songs that remind her of home, of that kid who carried a busted-ass Walkman in their bag and had a fairly impressive heavy metal tape collection in someone else’s handwriting.

So seventeen. And eighteen. And nineteen, and most of the year, and then one day it hits her: she could just _go._ Her parents are doing their best, she’s saved up a few grand, and aside from the singlewide, there’s not a thing she owns that wouldn’t fit in her panniers. She could set up shop wherever she damned well pleased, as far away in any direction as the bike will carry her. But when she closes her eyes at night on the twin mattress crammed into the back of the trailer, all she sees is dark eyes and fire, and she knows where she needs to be.

She’s exhausted all the time, and ends up sleeping under an overpass after the first day so she doesn’t crash her bike for real, pulling her duster over her head and hoping it passes her off as a weird, lumpy rock at a glance. Nobody wakes her. Nobody kicks her ribs open.

But when she pulls into the city, less the “roaring in on a fall breeze” she was imagining and more of a cautious putter, her heart starts to beat a little faster. Adrenaline kicks in. She weaves through the blocks at fifteen to twenty-five, tries not to stare too long at the hunched-over figures on stoops and the slow shamble of junkie feet. _What am I doing here?_

She finds a room. She finds Dean. Or rather, she hears his voice sing-songing off the pipes and buildings at night, and calls marco-polo back, and when she asks him where he is, he just laughs in a way that sounds like a broken bone feels — sharp and dull together. Once, she thinks she catches something out of the corner of her eye: a person, maybe more than one, tumbling over the rooftop.

One night the sound is low and she sticks her head down next to a manhole cover and asks Dean what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. “Catching up on my goddamn summer reading list,” he grouses, and she can hear the eyeroll in his voice from whatever torture rack he’s strung up in on this particular occasion. Wait.

She’s bolting across the plaza before the sun comes up the next day, and falls asleep sitting up on the front steps of the library waiting for the tall, dark-haired librarian to nudge her with a hip as she unlocks the front doors. The librarian looks so much more haunted than she used to, or maybe Becky just understands more about the things that weigh on her mind now that she’s caught a few more years. But there’s still some life in her cheeks as she hugs Becky tight and confirms the status quo.

She asks the librarian where the kid and their dad live, _for real, please tell me everything,_ but only hears so much. They don’t come up, especially not during the day, more than once or twice a month, and the passing gossip about what they do at night is too impossible to acknowledge. She watches the dark-haired woman’s jaw tense and her strong arms grow tight.

She’s wandering the streets the next day, not far from the floor she used to sleep on, when an old building catches her eye. Low, sloping roof. Dark paint job. Sign in the window. The guy looking to sell off answers the phone with a cough, and rattles the key in the lock. Becky looks at the long hardwood bar, smirks, and makes him a shitty offer.

_What if they’re not even here anymore? What if they left?_

_But what if they didn’t?_

* * *

 

By day, she’s building, painting, cleaning, parking her bike out front like a beacon screaming _find me, find me_. By night, she’s searching, feeling like she ought to be baying to the fucking moon, berating herself for every iteration of every idea — _nothing in this shithole works, what makes you so special, mom always said you’d learn everything the hard way_. She goes to the library again to pick up some stuff on electrical systems, before she kills herself in an ultimate example of that, and the librarian looks at her with sad hopeful eyes and says they were in there on Tuesday and it makes her stomach throw itself into her throat.

So Becky goes to find them. Amidst rumors and whispered warnings and harsh-voiced allegations, she goes to find the kid. Not a kid. Pacing through burned-out, bankrupt, rust-gilded, vague memories, she knows she can’t wait to be found by someone who may not even know she’s _there_ , but if there ever was a time for something like this to sound like a good idea, the present is looking downright “why the fuck not?”

She gets a good song stuck in her head, gets herself just distracted enough that she can’t overthink where she’s going, and walks. And walks. Finally, stones crunch under her boots, and she’s looking up at the round metal gate that in the past always served as Sev’s front door of sorts. At the first major turn, she flips a coin, and there’s a man sprawled out carelessly in the corner.

On second glance, he’s hung up an actual hammock, legs crossed at the ankle, one hand pillowed behind his head as the other holds open a book. A library book. The sticker on the back triggers Becky’s memory somehow, and she realizes she’s pretty sure she knows this man. He’s not the father, but he’s with them a lot - an uncle maybe? A big brother? A neighbor? She’s only seen him from a little bit of distance, either with the kid or with another man, and they’re always up to some sort of no good that looks like a lot of fun. Once, she saw them jacking a car somewhere on topside - a gloriously shiny low-rider the same color as her hair.

“Can I help you?” the man asks, and Becky realizes she’s been staring and pinks right the hell up. But then the man smiles, and everything bad that’s ever happened in her life melts away like dirty urban snow.

“I’m. I’m looking for someone,” she mumbles, all bravery evaporated in the face of a sunshine smirk.

“Who sent you?” Underneath the grin, his eyes are dark, too.

“I… The… I went to the library.”

“Ahh. _Mamacita.”_

She wrinkles her forehead. “I thought —”

“Wait. You’re the redhead.” The man closes his book, then sits up and cocks his head. “You must be Becky.”

She inhales sharply. “What? I mean, yes? How? Why?”

“Ete never shut up about you, that’s why. And now you’re looking for her, I bet. Hell of a coincidence.” He leans back against the wall, book in his lap.

 _Her?_ “Yeah, I, ehm. I’m out of places to go. And they know a lot.” _And I haven’t stopped thinking about them for six years and this, whatever this is, ain’t enough anymore._

“Well, I can’t take you, _la fuega._ Sev’s pops, or her dad I mean, is real particular; even I ain’t got the keys to that part of the kingdom, and I couldn’t tell you how to get there if I did. All I can say is, you know Ete, you know the route she’d pick.”

“The worst fuckin’ one,” Becky drawls, and the man throws his head back and laughs as she keeps on walking.

What the rest of Suplex City called the Underground, the Deadman’s kid simply refers to as "home, sweet home." A labyrinthine, complicated hellscape of abandoned train tunnels, sewer pipes, dug-out trenches and strange, sunken rooms leftover from generations past, it was once home to only a few brave souls, but more and more trickle in every day, swearing whatever feeble allegiance they could offer in exchange for a chance to die someplace other than the gutter. The Underground, and its inhabitants, are a complicated, messy affair, a strange mix of the smell of fear and the crackle of unnatural electricity. Humans don’t come down here if they have absolutely any other option whatsoever - the citywide game of telephone created by the ones who ran away into the daylight, usually screaming, makes sure of that. Everything _not_ human, well. Come for the reputation, stay for the entertainment.

It’s been six goddamn years since she’s been anywhere near the Underground. Her mental map, what limited bits and pieces she ever saw or heard about, is very, _very_ faded, but she remembers a lot of jogs to the left and certain ragged glints of metal that haven’t changed all that much.

It’s hot as hell down here, as it ever was, and Becky tugs off her duster, folding it over her arms. It’s also dark, and hard to see, and her eyes don’t adjust as quickly as they used to. Some parts she remembers - it’s impossible to forget the huge, red-flickered room with the pits, tired-looking men leaning against the walls or circling each other with half-hooded eyes. She came down here once or twice. Maybe three times. Mostly to watch Dean and Sev beat the shit out of each other for their own amusement and bragging rights. One of the whispers she’s picked up topside is that it ain’t so much fun anymore; that there’s a new wannabe-sheriff in town who’s been pushing real hard for money above all else, who wants the best of the best trapped down here for his entertainment. She bumps her knuckles on the wall, feels the heat pouring through, and moves along with big strides. She thinks she hears screaming in the distance. Might just be the wind through the ventilation shafts.

But the further back she goes, the darker it gets, and it occurs to Becky that she could very well die down here alone. It’s fucking claustrophobic, and it feels like her hair keeps catching on something that’s never there when she turns around. There’s sparks in the darkness, little round ones that look like eyes, but nothing behind them. She hasn’t seen another person in what feels like an hour but is probably more like twenty minutes. She’s terrified she’s going to find Dean, because if she finds him down here it's probably going to be his corpse. It’s hot, so so fucking hot.

_Where the fuck am I? What was I thinking? I’m going to be lost down here forever, just like mom always said happens, and no one will ever find me. Least of all the one person I want to._

She turns a corner too quickly, frustrated and close to tears, and slams shoulder-to-shoulder with someone who moves with such silence that Becky didn’t even know they were there. She spins out, nearly cracks her skull on the wall, and mumbles an apology, only to find the tall figure frozen in place, a nocturnal shine on their eyes and lips pressed harshly together.

 _Jesus, Mary, and Joseph._ It’s Seven, looking like seven flavors of holy hell in shitkicker filthy engineer boots and a leather jacket (even in this fucking heat) and tight, fucking _tight_ black jeans and Becky is very suddenly reminded that she is a woman with needs.

Becky opens her mouth, then closes it again, then sucks in a lungful of air and hugs her own ribs until they creak. She practiced her speech a thousand times on the long ride to the city, on the long walk through the tunnels, in her goddamn _sleep_ , but now that everything’s laid out in front of her like a chess board, all she can do is choke on six years’ worth of silence. Sev takes a step, but not towards her; instead, she circles around like a nervous zoo animal, flicking her small, dark eyes over everything. The appraisal makes Becky feel uncomfortably flush, and she finds herself following the pace, coiling her steps to match without ever taking her eyes off the tall, far-flung person across the way. Leather scrapes on the narrow walls. There’s a small, very faint waft of sulfur.

 _in the darkness among lonely spirits_  
_hopeless atmosphere, steel gates spear it_  
_so simplistic, so realistic, so sadistic  
_ _you lose it all yeah_

* * *

 

To everyone's shock, Sev speaks first, lip curling in a tough-guy snarl as if by decades of practice and instinct, but eyes wide like they’ve been lost or found. “Was it enough?”

“I don’t understand,” Becky whispers, but then realizes that she absolutely does.

“Was once enough?”

She gives her head a slow, deliberate shake. “Not from you. Not ever.”

Sev hesitates, and this time it’s Becky’s turn to step up until they’re almost nose to nose. Almost. Seven’s grown up, quite literally; she must be six foot now, and while Becky’s always been a little above average in the lankiness department, she never got that far, and even on her tiptoes has to tilt her head to accomplish anything resembling eye contact. She reaches for Sev’s face, the smudge of ash on their cheekbone, but they shrink back as though from a fist and Becky’s heart shatters with the words that come out of their mouth next, steely but spiderwebbed with cracks.

“You mean that?”

Becky wipes her sore eyes on her glove and clears her throat. “Course. I was a stupid fuckin’ kid with a stupid fuckin’ crush. Wasn’t fair what I did. I didn’t mean to leave you like that.”

“I’ve had worse since. At least you asked. And, I, um. I’m a girl now, by the way,” Sev mumbles, and Becky realizes she doesn’t care. She never thought about it, not once. It was never a thing that mattered. Seven was the thing that mattered, and that was it. She noses up against Becky’s face and then waits, shivering with the inevitability of whatever the fuck is going to come next.

_Your move, Rebecca._

So then Becky kisses her. She’s kissed other people — it’s been six fucking years, they’re definitely not kids anymore — but this is, to make the understatement of the century, different. It’s softer, less desperate, undemanding, kind. It’s a second kiss. Seven flinches at first, afraid to move so much as a muscle, but her fingers curl, and out of pure instinct, Becky reaches forward and shoves her wrists between them. She says something into Sev’s mouth, but she’s so dizzy she isn’t certain what it actually is. Whatever comes out, though, has the effect her guts must have intended, because Sev’s fingers tighten around her wrists, and she takes a step forward, leaning Becky back into the wall. She’s growing more confident with every breath, every touch, and the end result is a near over-saturation of sensory feedback.

Becky has dreamed about this, in cloudy vagaries on very long nights. The first time, she wasn’t thinking any further than kissing — none of them ever thought any further ahead than five minutes back then, fuck, they were kids, she’s not even entirely sure how she found out that kissing was a thing that people _do_ — but like a bolt of lightning, she damned well knows now, and tilts her head back for more. Sev keeps kissing her, shoots one forearm behind Becky’s back and trails the fingers of her other hand up the side of Becky’s neck, follows them with her teeth, and out of instinct, Becky puts her hands behind her back, letting them be trapped between her shirt and Seven’s skin, works her far wrist back into that tight grip until she’s pinned. Sev exhales, and then they’re chest to chest, Sev leading her backwards in a pitch black ballroom dance and Becky following with her eyes closed and heart blown wide open.

Two to the right, two back, one more to the right, and there’s space behind her; it must be some sort of side room where there’s space to maneuver. Sev knows this place like the back of her hand, knows every inch of every tunnel and crevice and has literally left no stone unturned. She nudges Becky backwards two more steps, still gripping her wrist, and gently pulls Becky’s coat free and sets it down; with electric reflexes, she brings the other hand from Becky’s face to the back of her head right before they hit another wall, cushioning the blow so the redhead doesn’t knock herself silly. Becky can hear the scraping of metal and rock on skin behind her, feel the pressure of the slightly taller body in front, and understands she’s surrounded. But she doesn’t panic. If anything, she relaxes, surrounded by warmth and familiarity in a strange and frightening place. Seven’s arms are there to keep her safe from whatever might be left behind. And Seven’s mouth is there to, well, beat the ever-loving shit out of Becky’s entire metaphysical world.

Sev takes that free hand and slams her forearm across Becky’s chest, very effectively pinning her in place, and it clearly does _something_ for the taller woman because she immediately brings up the pace, fingers trembling as she tries so, so hard to be careful. Sev was always careful, Becky remembers, she never did anything by accident, she never hurt anybody who didn’t have it coming, but she smells like leather and lust and her hands are still shaking as she grasps the fabric of Becky’s shirt and kisses her over and over.

“Where the fuck have you been?” she demands, but it’s not demanding, really, and it’s not angry, and it’s not — oh fuck, it’s _sad_. Fuck. Becky tries to bring an arm up to wipe away the tears that are rolling down Sev’s face, but Sev won’t let her go, not for an instant, and she has to settle for kissing them off her eyes and cheekbones. Which is hardly settling, she thinks, offering up the lightest touches she can and taking the excuse to arch and wind against her in a way that she hopes screams _hang on for dear life._ Inexplicably, she’s struck with the image of Seven on her bike, the two of them barreling down the highway to or away from something, from all of this when it’s all said and done. It doesn’t matter who’s got the handlebars because they’re stuck together in layers of fabric and heat.

Sev pulls away, still with tears shining on her face, and Becky realizes they’re not all hers. But Sev also ain’t letting go, and Becky ain’t letting her, either.

“Where the fuck have you been?” she asks again, soft as flowers and honey and things they don’t get in the Underground. Electricity crackles around her. The temperature seems to drop a couple of degrees.

“My parents —” Becky’s voice cracks, and Seven interrupts the silence anyway.

“You know what? I don’t give a fuck. You’re here. You’re fucking _here_.” And then Sev kisses her again, this time with teeth and tongue and a certain vicious desperation, and Becky can’t help the sigh that escapes as she hangs her body happily between the woman and the wall.

“I’m here,” she gasps. “I missed you.”

It’s now been well-established in this thunderstorm of kisses that Sev is long, and lean, and very strong, and really only needs one hand to keep the redhead exactly where she wants her, and that other hand, oh god, that _other_ hand is making its sweet way over every inch of unmapped flesh like it’s something to read. She remembers with a jolt the way Sev would sometimes talk about how things felt in the Underground, before her eyes changed and she got good at _seeing,_ the way she’d memorize outcroppings and turns and niches and pipes to find her way, to gauge transitions of all kinds. She realizes she’s the one being methodically explored now, tucked away in Seven’s confusing and magnificent mind, and her ribcage expands with a deep breath under those splayed fingers at the thought of being committed to memory, like a gravestone rubbing or burned wood or acid on metal.

Callused fingertips kiss the strip of skin between her tank top and jeans, and she goes boneless, trying to press as much of herself into that hand as she possibly can. Seven just chuckles and pulls her back with that tight grip, teasing and tugging and pulling on the seams. Her thumb brushes the button on Becky’s jeans, threatening to ease it open. “Here?”

 _Oh god._ Becky can’t take it anymore, and tears her wrist free from Seven’s hand to reach around. Sev stops cold and steps back, hands raised, and Becky realizes she’s bleeding from a long scrape on her forearm, some outcropping of rock or metal that must’ve gouged into her when she put her body between Becky and the wall.

 _She bled for me. She bled to keep me safe._ It’s silly and trivial, or it ought to be, but that doesn’t explain why her fucking heart aches the way that it does.

There’s a silence, but only for a second. The next sound is the quick snap of metal and fabric as Becky pops the button on her jeans, then puts her arms back to the wall with a daring glance, brown eyes to black-brown. Long legs close the distance and she closes her eyes, shivering at the breath on her neck, jaw, ear. Becky realizes through her haze that Sev is _talking,_ talking like she’s never talked before. Her voice has changed, but it’s still quiet, still rough, and skates over her nerves like cold water. She could be reciting the goddamn dictionary, for all Becky cares, but when she finally takes a deep breath and gets enough oxygen to listen in, she goes all fuzzy-headed with twice as much conviction, because it’s fucking filthy. Pure, unadulterated filth, the kind that’s making even its author blush and hide her face in Becky’s shoulder.

They want. They want now, in a way that they didn’t want before, but in a place where they can listen to each other with literally nothing in between? They _want._

Becky realizes she's been holding her breath again, this time for what feels like minutes, terrified that any movement or sound will end this dream, but that shatters when Seven bites her lower lip, hard enough to throb, and flat-out snarls. "I'm gonna stop if you're not enjoying this."

“Oh fuck,” she whimpers, instantly feverish and chilled at the thought. “Don’t stop, don’t, for the love of god please don’t.” Seven’s hand is sliding quick and hard past her waistband and into her panties, and she’s up to her wrist in wetness in a matter of seconds before curling those strong, callused fingers and hooking them up and inside. The initial penetration brings an outburst of profanity from them both, and they pause, breathing heavily into each other’s mouths. Becky works up the nerve to open her eyes and sees Seven’s dark ones blazing with lust and determination and she knows, she just _knows_ in every muscle and nerve that this is what they want. She sinks down a little bit, claiming a little more of Seven’s fingers, and brushes their lips together in a kiss so gentle it almost seems like a joke given that she’s being slow-fucked possibly to death against a wall in a dark side cave god only knows how many feet below civilization. A drop of sweat from Seven’s forehead falls and lands on Becky’s collarbones, and then Seven kisses her again, drinks in her little cries as she holds Becky stock-still and then starts to move, leaning those strong fingers further and further in, letting the heel of her palm press against Becky’s clit hard enough to make them both see stars.

“God, you smell so fucking good,” Seven whispers, and then Becky can feel the heat of her blush as she ducks her face down, almost like she’s embarrassed by the admission. She pulls her hand out, and Becky whines, but stops in mid-breath at the sight of Sev licking up her wet palm. “You _taste_ fucking good too. Fuck, you taste like heaven.” Then she jams her knee and her hand back where they were, but with three fingers this time, and Becky feels her body stretch to accommodate the feeling. It’s so good, it’s so perfect, she’s never felt anything quite like this before, being nudged to her limits and grateful for the chance. She fucks her hips up against Seven’s hand, begging wordlessly for something that she can’t name, just wanting more and more and more.

“You like that, don’t you? Tell me,” Seven growls, but there’s a note of pleading in her voice. _Please like this. Please feel good. I want you to._

“I want it,” Becky croaks, and swallows. She’s too far gone to be ashamed anymore and it all comes tumbling out. “I fuckin’ need it, Sev. I didn’t know what I needed until this but I can’t live without it. I want everything. I want more, I want everything, I want to feel you inside every inch of me.”

Seven sighs in what feels like relief, and slides her pinkie in, fingers starting to shape together. “You know what I’m gonna do after this? I’m gonna put you in my bed, fuckin’ put my fist in you. You want that? You want my hand in your cunt? Put my fuckin’ hand in you and eat you out, lick that delicious fucking pussy until you come apart and I can feel you making the bones grind together in my knuckles, until my arm cramps up and my wrist aches, until it hurts me but it never, ever fuckin’ hurts you.”

“Oh god, yes!” Becky’s voice is cracked and broken by the image.

Seven's fucking her progressively harder, rocking them both into the wall like she'll never get the chance to do it again, stroking the ridged front wall of Becky’s cunt against her curled fingers - careful, built-up, but above all things rife with need. She’s brought her other hand up to brace the back of Becky’s head again, making sure she doesn’t hurt herself on the wall, and starts biting at her collarbones, careful to nose her shirt aside, careful not to leave anything that they couldn’t cover afterwards. Careful, thoughtful, considerate as she ever was, Becky thinks, barely able to put phrases together through her haze. Sev’s still talking in that low voice, meant for them and them alone, making glorious threats about the different ways she can think of to fill a good woman’s needy, wonderful holes. She pulls one slick finger out of her cunt and gently traces it back to her ass, and Becky gasps but presses into her, so ready for this, so ready for everything she could possibly get.

Then they hear footsteps.

Becky whimpers, and Seven covers her mouth with her free hand and slows, but doesn't stop, even when Becky bites down. Then she pulls her hand out, slick spilling down her forearm and Becky’s thighs, and just starts pressing circles into her. Tears roll down Becky's face as she tries to hold back, tries to calm down, but it's far too late, and the slow, hard roll of Seven's fingers over her clit is enough to send her staggering over the edge.

The footsteps continue without pause, and Seven kisses the tears from Becky's face before releasing her. Becky slumps, and Seven, wide-eyed, catches her one-armed before she reaches the ground, licking her fingers clean again with ridiculous nonchalance.

Then Becky kisses her hip, and she freezes hard.

"Please," she whispers, through fresh tears of desperation.

"Yeah? Just wanna see what it's like?" Seven’s voice is cocky and careful but there’s still just the tiniest hint of fear and pain behind it. _Good enough to give, not enough to take._

"No," she sobs brokenly, overwhelmed with something so profound it has no name. "I need you." She says it again, a little quieter. "I need you."

In the darkness and the quiet, there's a zip and a movement of fabric. "Show me."

Becky plunges her face forward, not sure what she's going to find, and completely unconcerned about the answer.

She tastes rich, tangy sweetness through curls and kisses, tentative at first but soon lapping shamelessly while Seven chuckles, then moans into her fist. "Greedy perfect thing, you like what you've got?"

Becky has long since forgotten what _words_ are, hellbent on finding the spaces and patterns and just-so twitches that make Seven's breath catch in her throat. She leans down and cups the back of Becky’s head tenderly again, fucking her hips forward to catch every motion. She’s not running her mouth, not right now, back to the quiet that everyone expects, but her muscles are tense and tight and she’s absolutely fucking soaked. When she comes, it’s with an intake of breath so sharp it could cut flesh and then she’s limp and trembling.

Becky sits back on her heels as Sev pulls a bandana out of her back left pocket. It’s white, printed with blue anchors, and she gently dabs at Becky’s face for a moment before the redhead stops her, more than content to wipe the mess off and lick her fingers clean.

“What are you, um.” Seven stuffs it back in her pocket and helps Becky to her feet, suddenly shy and awkward and confused all over again. “Was that — was that okay?”

In response, Becky kisses her, pinning her to the wall this time, all hands and skin and hair everywhere, tearing her mouth away long enough to press her lips to Seven’s ears, neck, throat, even the shaved sides of her head. “You’re the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Seriously? _That’s_ all I had to do?” Seven’s still smiling and there’s a little mischief in her eyes as she grabs Becky’s hand and guides her back down the main drag. She seems baffled by everything now that they’re back to earth, or slightly below it. “You came back here to find _me?_ ”

“Kinda.”

Sev scoffs, but the corner of her mouth turns up at the thought. “What’re you doing tonight?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well, mission fuckin’ accomplished,” she laughs. “How about after that?”

Becky rubs her face again. “Didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Yeah, that was never a strong point of ours, was it?”

 _Ours._ She forms the word silently, likes the way it tastes, then gives Sev’s shoulder a nudge as they walk.

“Seriously, though. Why the fuck did you come back? It couldn’t have all been for me. Fuckin’ fabulous though I am.”

Becky punches her arm, gently. “I missed this shithole. Couldn’t tell you why. Dreamed about it. So I got on my fuckin’ bike and I just went. Figured I’d solve the rest when I got here.”

“Oh shit, you have a motorcycle?” Sev’s eyes crinkle with joy. “That’s… honestly, that’s hot as hell.”

“Did I tell you I bought a bar, too?”

“Ah, no shit! The one on the East Side?”

“You got it.”

“What are you gonna do? What’s it called now?”

“I used to hang at these places near where my folks ended up. Lotta live music and shit like that. Haven’t seen anything like it here, was guessing there might be a market. But otherwise, I don’t have a fuckin’ clue, Sev. You wanna help me figure it out?” The gravity of that question hits Becky all at once, and she stops, pulling her duster back on and jamming her hands in the pockets.

But to her surprise, Seven looks fucking delighted. “I don’t know shit about shit, but I’m okay at fixing stuff. Maybe I can come by tomorrow or something?”  

“You got big plans tonight, girlie?”

“I mean…” The taller woman crosses her arms. “If we’re being honest, breaking and entering?”

“Break— that’s your game plan?”

“Well, yeah. I get some shit, other people don’t get it, everyone wins. I usually go solo if one of the guys isn’t around, but if you ain’t busy, you could, um. Go jack some shit with me and then let me fuck your brains out after.” Her round face oscillates between a charming level of cockiness and anxiety.

“You askin’ me on a _date,_ Hanh?” Becky reaches for her wrist, tangles their fingers again.

“I think so? Hadn’t really had a lot of practice.”

“You?” Now it’s Becky’s turn to scoff.

“Aw, c’mon, Beck. ‘Hey, I know I just beat the ever-loving shit out of you in a pit fight; wanna go back to the gated sulfurous hellhole I share with my terrifying supernatural father and help me wash the blood off of my boots? Don’t worry, I’m actually adopted!’” She grins, taking long strides down the passageway. “It’s not really a good pickup line, even down here.”

“And yet here we are.” Becky tries to keep a straight face, but it’s decidedly not working.

“No, literally, here we are,” Sev interrupts, gesturing to a ladder that has apparently manifested itself out of nowhere just in time. Becky peers up, and sees a grate above her head, and a touch of light, and hears the creak of metal and leather as Sev takes the first rung. “You comin’? I’ll let you hold my crowbar.”

 _in the army of babylon_  
_i'm a young al capone, yeah_  
_myself an outlaw in eyes of the lord, yeah_  
_good men lose and the bad men win_  
_well the blind and sick i attenuate them_  
_well the barrels of concrete and melted steel_  
_black smoke rises like a ghost in the field_  
_and uh hardened lungs deep breathing the air  
_ _that stings the life from within me_

 

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, some context. The entire big story was inspired by two things that had been on my prompt list for a very long time: the Rancid song “Young Al Capone” (hence the title), and the question, “Does Suplex City have a library?” Because I’m predictable like that. Sev is the Undertaker’s adopted daughter, who he found in a burned-out building after he accidentally set the city on fire in a bit of a supernatural temper tantrum. The main story is about maybe twenty-five years of her life growing up in the Underground, starting in the early-to-mid-1990s. Hence the many cameos. (There’s also a subplot that I like to call “why the fuck would a bunch of supernatural creatures give a fuck about their kid’s gender until they figure it out for themselves,” which is why there’s a pronoun switch.)
> 
> side note: I threw a reference to the Kevn Kinney song "Broken Hearts and Auto Parts" into this, because why not, it's a really important song to me for personal reasons and has been since I was in high school, but when I went to confirm that I hadn’t fucked up the lyrics, I found out that there’s a cover of it done by Cherlene from Archer and I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe.


End file.
